Nishioka Kyoudai

Official website

Nishioka Kyoudai are Japanese manga artists with a joint pen name. Members consist of brother, Satoshi Nishioka (西岡智) and sister, Chiaki Nishioka (西岡千晶). They debuted in "Morning" magazine in 1989. Their first published work for Garo came in 1991, and by the year 1997 they became regular contributors to AX. Their works consist of both manga and ehon (絵本 / picture books) and are often published by Seirinkogeisha (青林工藝舎).

One can think of their manga as children's stories on young adult themes of heartbreak, social obligation, suicide, and existential crisis. Their work is reticent when not wordless, and has a floating flying groundless feeling, set within silent unmarked spaces, with waifish figures tousled and about to be blown away by the flow of life. Stylistically, their work derives from the abstraction, patterning, and attenuation found in early twentieth century illustrations to European fairy tales. Over the years, the line of Nishioka's drawings has become lighter and lighter, once thick brush strokes in the mid-90s, now at the brink of vanishing.